Politics|Is Coal’s Political Heft Plunging? One State May Be Canary in Mine

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Is Coal’s Political Heft Plunging? One State May Be Canary in Mine

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Rail cars carrying coal from a plant in Rawlins, Wyo., in 2014. Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer, and its governor has traveled to Washington State to urge residents there to allow a new coal export terminal.CreditCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — The American coal industry, with its billions of dollars and army of lobbyists, has a storied history of muscle and might. But in this northwest corner of Washington, people like Christopher Grannis, a 69-year-old building contractor and stalwart in local civic causes, are standing up to coal.

And coal is losing.

“There are financial rewards for a few, but risks are borne by many,” Mr. Grannis said, standing at a microphone at a recent Whatcom County Council meeting in support of a moratorium on new applications for fossil fuel transport through the county. Council members passed the moratorium later that evening.

American coal producers, suffering under the weight of Obama administration regulations, have sought to export their fuel to Asia, hoping that a new hub of proposed export terminals along a stretch of the Pacific Northwest could serve as their industry’s economic lifeline. Instead, local activists have shot down almost every project, adding a western blockade to what President Obama’s critics have called the “war on coal.”

And on Election Day, this state may go further, with a vote on a first-of-its-kind ballot initiative to tax carbon emissions — a policy that most economists say is the most effective way to tackle global warming. Across the country, both advocates and opponents of climate change measures are watching closely to see if the Washington ballot initiative will herald national efforts to fight global warming through higher taxation of fossil fuels.

The state ballot initiative would create a tax of $25 per ton on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, and use the revenue to cut one percentage point from the state sales tax, give a rebate of up to $1,500 for low-income families and effectively eliminate a tax on manufacturers.

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Yoram Bauman has spearheaded a ballot initiative for a carbon tax in Washington State.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

Across the country, policy makers have taken notice. N. Gregory Mankiw, an economist at Harvard, who was the chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Mr. Bauman’s proposal “could be exactly the right model for a national carbon tax.”

“It’s a global problem, so it can’t be done only in one state,” Mr. Mankiw said. “The answer has eventually got to be a global carbon price. But this is the right step to a global solution.”

The coal industry sees Washington’s efforts as a one-two punch. But what really scares coal executives is the prospect of a trend.

Mr. Murray spoke disdainfully of those efforts. Although he would like to ship his coal to Asia through Washington, “they won’t let me,” he said. “So I’m taking it to Vancouver.” Of local activists like Mr. Grannis, he said: “All they’re doing is hurting themselves. It’s a political movement. I don’t have time for these radicals.”

Over the past six years, six major coal export projects have been proposed in Washington and Oregon. After opposition from local and state agencies, American Indian tribes and activists like Mr. Grannis, only one project, in Longview, Wash., is still under active review, according to the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based environmental research group. The price of coal — and global demand for it — has also fallen, dampening the resolve by coal exporters to fight for their projects.

In a sign of how seriously the coal industry takes the actions by Washington residents, Matt Mead, the governor of Wyoming, traveled to Longview last year to make the case directly to its citizens, urging them to allow a new coal export terminal.

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Robert E. Murray, the chief executive of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corporation. He said a national carbon tax “would have a devastating impact — it would eliminate the use of all fossil fuels.”CreditAndrew Spear for The New York Times

“The decisions those folks on the coast are making affect more than just the future of their state — it is deciding the future of citizens of Wyoming and Montana and other major coal states,” said Mr. Mead, whose state is the nation’s largest coal producer.

Mary L. Lyons, 64, a former office manager who retired to Longview from the Seattle area, was not impressed.

Though she has never been much involved in politics, promises about coal and its benefits brought back memories of a childhood trip through Appalachian coal country, where the poverty and environmental damage stayed in her memory, she said.

As Mr. Mead made his case, she stood up to challenge him, she recalled, and her involvement rolled on from there.

“It just made me really angry, that’s all,” she said.

For now, opponents of the coal terminals and supporters of the carbon tax appear to have a slight edge. A pollreleased on Oct. 24 by Elway Research, a Northwestern polling firm, found that 40 percent of voters surveyed supported the tax, 32 percent opposed it and 28 percent were undecided.

And supporters of the carbon tax have vastly outspent opponents. As of Oct. 27, Mr. Bauman’s campaign to pass the carbon tax had raised $2.4 million and spent $1.4 million, while the campaign opposing the initiative had raised about $790,000 and spent just $411,000. About 23 percent of the money raised in favor of the tax was from outside the state, compared with about 51 percent of the money raised against it.

Those numbers also appear to bode well for the continuing efforts to block the coal export terminals, environmentalists say. But that does not mean the terminals are dead, said Clark Williams-Derry, the director of energy finance for the Sightline Institute.

“These things are zombies,” he said. “They never quite die. They keep shambling forward even when their economic heart has stopped beating.”